EMEAC among four organizations chosen as public policy fellows in national EAT4HEALTH program

August 23, 2012

Charity Hicks

WASHINGTON D.C. -- The
Jesse Smith Noyes Foundation announced today the naming of four
community-based activists from Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey and
Texas as the foundation’s first Everybody at the Table for Health
fellows.

“Our
goal is to bring about better food
and farm policy by supporting community-based leaders who will help
bridge the gap between grass-roots community organizing and national
advocacy,”
says Kolu Zigbi, Noyes Foundation director
of sustainable agriculture and food systems, and creator of the
fellowship program, also known as EAT4Health. “Ultimately, we hope
EAT4Health will lead to enactment of federal food and farm policies
that support environmental, economic and food justice for all.”

Beginning in September, each fellow will
work with a national advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. and his
or her sponsoring community-based organization to design a work plan
and project that builds and leverages the power of grass-roots
leadership and the national organization’s expertise. The
fellowships are for three years.

The
fellows and their community-based organizations are:

Nelson Carrasquillo,
general coordinator of the Farmworkers Support Committee, also known
as El Comite de Apoyo a los Trabajadores, Glassboro, New Jersey.

Dana Parfait, member
of the Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha Confederation
of Muskogees,
which is part of the Coastal Communities Collaborative, Houma,
Louisiana.

“The fellows will work together to
develop skills, talk with and learn from policy experts, share
experiences, explore areas of common interest and plan collaborative
campaigns,” explains Zigbi.

Although
the first four Everybody at the Table for Health fellows are diverse
in terms of where they live, race and ethnicity, and the
community-based organizations they represent, they share a long-term
commitment to social justice, a sustainable environment and healthier
food options in their communities.

Meet the 2012
Everybody at the Table Health fellows:\\

Charity Hicks
is coordinator of
the Detroit Food
Justice Taskforce, a collaborative of 12 community-based groups
formed in 2009 including The
East Michigan Environmental Action Council (EMEAC). EMEAC’s mission is to empower
the Detroit community to protect, preserve, and value its land, air
and water. The
task force brings together local growers, social and environmental
justice organizations, schools, churches, food educators, restaurants
and caterers, restaurant suppliers, the City of Detroit, community
activists and residents to promote a justice-centered food system,
explains Hicks. The Detroit native and environmentalist is
a member of the Detroit Grocery Store Coalition Steering Committee,
Detroit Food Policy Council and the People’s Water Board Detroit.

“One of the most critical food
policy issues for Detroiters is a lack of access in city
neighborhoods to quality, fresh produce that is nutritionally dense,”
says Hicks, a master gardener and founding member and secretary of
the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, one of the city’s
largest agricultural groups. “Good soil and sound agricultural
practices are at the root of all resilient, vibrant food systems. We
need to have both,” she says.

Hicks previously
worked as a clinical research associate and project coordinator of a
National Institutes of Health-funded longitudinal study on health
disparities at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry.

Nelson
Carrasquillo is general
coordinator of the Farmworkers Support Committee, headquartered in
Grassboro, New Jersey. Two thousand member families who work in farm
fields and packinghouses in Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania
govern the nonprofit organization. The Farmworkers Support Committee
also is known as CATA, for El
Comite de Apoyo a los Trabajadores.

“Most
U.S. food policies are designed to facilitate access to cheap labor,”
says Carrasquillo, who joined the
Farmworkers Support Committee in 1992. Previously he coordinated
organizing in the National Ecumenical Movement in his native Puerto
Rico, where he worked with fishing and small agricultural
communities, farm workers, and communities with environmental
problems.

In addition to engaging Farmworkers Support
Committee members in local agricultural programs, Carrasquillo is
active in the Agricultural Justice Project, which develops
standards for the fair and just treatment of people working in
organic and sustainable agriculture. The Agricultural Justice
Project’s
domestic social justice certification initiative and its Food Justice
Certified label allow family-scale farms to distinguish their
products from industrialized organic products.

Carrasquillo co-chairs Urban Rural Mission
USA and its Global Partners Working Group. He is a member of the New
Jersey Blue Ribbon Panel on Immigration and says immigration reform
is the most critical issue for Farmworkers Support Committee members.
He believes the Everybody at the Table for Health fellowship will
help him make the necessary connections to advocate effectively on
food policy issues at the national level.

Diana Lopez
is coordinator
of environmental justice at the Southwest Workers Union in San
Antonio, Texas. The Southwest Workers Union, with 3,500 members,
works to reframe
public policy to protect the community and include the voices of
local residents. It has led successful strategic campaigns targeting
wages, environmental clean-up, economic revitalization, health care
and energy policy.

Lopez, a part-time agricultural
and ethno-botany student at Palo Alto College, began working with the
Southwest Workers Union as a high school intern. It was while
conducting a health study in neighborhoods near two of San Antonio’s
six military bases that she made the connection between birth
defects, cancer and other health problems associated with pollution
from military installations.

“The experience of working with
other environmental justice organizers helped me figure out my role
in the community and made me aware of the systemic barriers that are
causing problems,” says Lopez, who helped establish the Southwest
Workers Union’s Roots of Change gardening cooperative.

“Too often industry comes ahead
of the health needs of the community,” Lopez says. “Also people
need access to fresh, organic food.” She looks forward to working
with the other fellows to establish policies that promote vibrant
food economies and healthy community infrastructures.

“I have worked a lot with
Detroit and am impressed with the urban farming model it is
developing. I also would like work together with the other fellows to
push through national policy and to teach others in my community
about policy development.”

Lopez was recognized with the
2009 Brower Youth Award from Earth Island Institute and the Urban
Renewal Award for her community organizing and for promoting food
sovereignty, premised on the belief that people
have the right to decide what to eat and that food should be healthy
and accessible to everyone in the community.
Lopez sits on the Energy Action Coalition, South by Southwest
Experiment, and Youth for Climate Justice coordinating committees.
She also is a member of the Food Policy Council of San Antonio and
the Green Spaces Alliance.

Dana Parfait
is a member of the Grand
Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha Confederation of Muskogees,
which is part of the Coastal Communities Collaborative, headquartered
in Houma, Louisiana. The four Native American communities and one
African American community that make up the collaborative work
together to preserve and protect Southeast Louisiana.

The collaborative focuses on
involving citizens in oversight of oil and gas industry activities,
preservation of wetlands, and food sovereignty and security issues,
including restoration of traditional medicinal plants.
The communities share
ethno-botanical knowledge, build and maintain test gardens, and work
together to protect and restore vital natural resources.

Parfait, an accountant and tribal
researcher, serves on the Grand
Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha Confederation of Muskogees
Tribal Community Disaster Council. She has worked on emergency
preparedness and policy issues related to tribal disaster recovery
since 2005. Parfait focuses on education, coastal erosion, the loss
of healing plants and the inability to grow crops due to the changing
environment. Recently, she worked with the Natural Resource
Conservation Service on restoration of native plants, gardening and
food cultivation.